Just five minutes of walking from the walls of Villefranche-de-Conflent is one of the most impressive cave complexes I have ever seen. Grotte des Grandes Canalettes is a series of caves full of fantastic calcium and stone formations, with thousands of stalactites and stalagmites reaching for each other from above and below. There is a beautiful underground lake and a couple of chambers so grand as to be utterly breathtaking.
The place is nicely set up for visiting, with a lot of colorful lighting. In the largest chamber, the voice of Andrea Bocelli and a couple of other classical singers adds to the ambiance. The audio loop has only 3 numbers, probably to help usher along anyone who would like to linger for too long, but the dramatic effect of hearing divine music and voices in a divine setting is literally mesmerizing.
Unfortunately, this beauty does not easily lend to walkabout handheld photography. Either that, or your reporter simply sucks at this. None of the close-ups came out any good, while the wider shots did not achieve much separation of foreground from background and fail to relay the magnificence of the place.
Here is all that I deemed salvageable.
I suppose you have to go there to see for yourselves.